President Trump signs order to promote broadband in rural areas

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that will make it easier for companies to install high-speed broadband networks in rural areas. The move is designed to tackle the economic challenges of integrating broadband infrastructure in these communities -- where 39 percent of people don't have access to broadband -- which the Obama administration highlighted two years ago.

Earlier this year Trump commented on his "$1 trillion infrastructure proposal", but this latest order doesn't appear to offer any funding to promote broadband in rural areas. Instead, it expedites federal permitting requirements, essentially removing governmental bottlenecks for broadband companies looking to install and operate wireless towers in these places. Trump signed the order in front of nearly 5,000 American Farm Bureau Federation members in Nashville, telling them, "Those towers are going to go up, and you're going to have great, great broadband."